Ryan no help with Hispanics

Mitt Romney is on track to lose the Latino vote by a wider margin than any Republican presidential candidate in over a decade, and strategists in both parties say he may have made a bad situation worse with his selection of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate.

What’s clear is that Romney’s lagging fortunes among Hispanics are unlikely to receive any boost from choosing a vice presidential candidate who has voted in Congress against the DREAM Act and supports overhauling entitlement programs that are extremely popular among Latino voters.

The Republican ticket’s dire position among Latinos has even stirred some hope among Democrats — and apprehension among some Republicans — that back-to-back smashing victories by President Barack Obama could move Latino voters in the Democratic column in a more durable way that could put the GOP at an electoral disadvantage for decades.

That’s an alarming prospect to GOP strategists who have seen their party driven to near extinction in states like California, where strident anti-immigration voices have turned the Latino vote away from Republicans, maybe for good. Even as Republicans have succeeded in electing more prominent Latino politicians, such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, they continue to lose ground in the battle for Latino voters nationally.

“There is no issue that is more alarming for the future national viability of the Republican Party than this one,” said Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s 2008 campaign. “The precipitous drop in the support levels for Republicans is alarming because it indicates that more and more Hispanics are simply disqualifying from consideration anyone with an ‘R’ next to their name.”

Obama’s lead over Romney among Hispanic voters in national polling hovers around and even above the 40 percent mark. Last month, a Latino Decisions survey showed Obama touching 70 percent of the vote and leading by 48 points. An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll conducted in late July found Obama taking 67 percent of Latinos to Romney’s 23 percent. The POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll published Monday placed that lead at 62 percent to 26 percent.

In other words, Obama’s commanding lead has not diminished and may be cemented in place. Univision anchor Jorge Ramos framed the Republican dilemma in a tweet after Ryan was announced as Romney’s ticket mate: “?How can [Paul Ryan] attract the Hispanic vote? If Republicans don’t get a third of the Latino vote they won’t get the White House back.”

The selection of a vice president could have been an opportunity to shake up the state of the race among Latino voters, but few in either party think Ryan is a running mate who will accomplish that goal.

Ryan has the potential to be an appealing figure for some of the culturally conservative, family- and business-oriented sectors of the electorate, including Latinos. He’s a young, Catholic family man who’s as free market as they come.

He’s also a member of a Republican Congress that many Latinos view as a hostile entity. Latino Decisions found that by a 51-point margin, Latinos oppose cuts to Medicare — an even wider margin than the electorate at large, according to some polls. A footnote to his career that could harm him with Cuban-Americans in particular: In 2009, Ryan expressed skepticism about the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, though he has since revised that stance.